---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 05:44:57 -0800 From: Jack Dean <JackDeanat_private> To: Declan McCullagh <declanat_private> Subject: Fake sites aim to teach investors a lesson Our tax dollars at work . . . http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/01/30/investing.hoax.ap/index.html Fake sites aim to teach investors a lesson January 30, 2002 WASHINGTON (AP) -- McWhortle Enterprises Inc. seems like the perfect investment for the post-September 11 world: a solid company, praised by analysts and customers, selling a handheld biohazard detector guaranteed to beep and flash in the presence of anthrax or other deadly germs. Only one problem: The company doesn't exist. McWhortle Enterprises is a government hoax cloaked in respectability and planted on the Internet, waiting to deliver a lesson about the risks of online investing to unsuspecting consumers. The Securities and Exchange Commission, the principal agency behind the fictitious company, was announcing Wednesday that it has seeded the Internet with a series of such Web sites laying in wait to say "gotcha" to naive investors, according to a source familiar with the project. The SEC would only say that it was holding a news conference to discuss "investor education initiatives." Barbara Roper, the Consumer Federation of America's director of investor protection, said she has no problem with the SEC's unorthodox methods. "There's clearly no intent here to do anything but educate the public in a way that might actually catch people's attention and make them realize they were that close to being scammed," she said. "You need to make the risk real to people." On Friday, the SEC issued a fake news release on behalf of McWhortle, saying the company would go public Wednesday, with company President Thomas McWhortle III holding a news conference at SEC headquarters. The release was distributed mainly to Web sites by a service for financial news. Financial news agencies that received the fake release were warned. [...] After the release was sent, the McWhortle Web site received more than 120,000 visits, the source said. [...] ____________________________________________________________ Jack Dean, Senior Partner JackDeanat_private Web Commanders | 2899 Newcastle Way | Corona Hills, CA 92879 Voice 909.278.3846 | Fax 909.278.3860 | Private 714.870.5585 Hosting | Design | Streaming Media | E-commerce | YouNameIt! ------------------------------------------------------------------------- POLITECH -- Declan McCullagh's politics and technology mailing list You may redistribute this message freely if you include this notice. Declan McCullagh's photographs are at http://www.mccullagh.org/ To subscribe to Politech: http://www.politechbot.com/info/subscribe.html This message is archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Events: Congreso Nacional de Periodismo Digital in Huesca, Spain from Jan. 17-18 (http://www.congresoperiodismo.com) and the Second International Conference on Web-Management in Diplomacy in Malta from Feb. 1-3. (http://www.diplomacy.edu/Web/conference2/) -------------------------------------------------------------------------
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